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ITEM EX5

EXECUTIVE – 4 MARCH 2003

BUS SERVICES REVIEW

Report by the Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management

1. Early last year the Executive commissioned the Environment Scrutiny Committee to carry out a review of the County Council’s bus service procurement policy and practice. The review was carried out by the consultants Halcrow, at a cost of £75,000 from the Executive’s budget plus £15,000 from Scrutiny. The consultants’ two reports are in the Members’ Resource Centre, and the Scrutiny recommendations (which include some significant changes from the consultants’ work) are in Annex 1. As we promised at the Executive Committee on 21 January, we have considered each recommendation in detail, taking account of the views of Scrutiny Committee, the views expressed by members on 21 January, the work by Halcrow and technical advice from officers.
2. For ease of reference this report summarises each Scrutiny recommendation in turn then groups together any appropriate technical advice, our own views and our recommendation on that topic. Our recommendations are also repeated together at the end. The full text of each Scrutiny recommendation is in Annex 1. (download as .doc file) In some cases where the Scrutiny recommendation covers several separate issues we have subdivided it for clarity. Recommendations which are unchanged from the consultants’ report are marked ‘Halcrow; those which were introduced by Environment Scrutiny as a new idea of their own are marked ‘Scrutiny’; and those items recommended by the consultants and modified by Environment Scrutiny are marked ‘Halcrow/Scrutiny’.

Bus Strategy

3. The Transport Act 2000 requires the Council to prepare and publish a Bus Strategy, to be part of the Local Transport Plan (LTP). It has to include the Council’s bus subsidy policy (replacing the previous free-standing policy) and state how the Council intends to use new powers given in that Act. Many of the recommendations from the Bus Services Review should thus be included in the Strategy.
4. The former Public Transport Sub-Committee on 15 February 2001 agreed in outline subjects to be included. In the event many of the matters agreed then have been covered in, and effectively superseded by, the Bus Services Review. However, in addition to whatever is agreed by this meeting, the draft Bus Strategy should include the Information Strategy already agreed, the principles of the Premium Routes Strategy and policy on bus stop infrastructure and interchanges which are also currently under consideration, and policies on Quality Partnerships and developer contributions, and on fares on subsidised and unsubsidised services.
5. Extensive consultation on the Bus Strategy is required by law. Those matters agreed at this meeting for inclusion in the Strategy will thus be put together with the other things listed above into a draft document for consultation (as agreed on 15 February 2001). We shall report back to Executive on consultees’ comments and our consequent recommendations on the final Strategy.

Scrutiny Recommendations

6. Scrutiny Recommendation A(1): Subsidy should be mainly directed to meeting transport need but should also take account of the PSA target for increased use (Halcrow/Scrutiny). Subsidy policy has never previously been explicit about its objective in these terms, and in practice officers have had regard to both. Whilst the PSA target itself is new, this is thus fundamentally a statement of existing practice and can straightforwardly be incorporated in the draft Bus Strategy. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation A(1) in the draft Bus Strategy.
7. Scrutiny Recommendation A(2): Use of Social Service vehicles for bus services should be vigorously pursued (Scrutiny). This was not studied by Halcrow but added after the consultants’ main work was complete. It was explored by Public Transport Sub-Committee in 1994/95 but deferred because members did not then wish to withdraw existing services in favour of using Social Services vehicles, and no additional funding was available to enable it to be used as an enhancement.
8. This is one of the four possible "new" ways of serving rural areas coming out of this study (the others, which are each dealt with separately below, are flexibly-routed services, feeders to Park and Ride, and postbuses). All require significant further work to investigate, including carrying out a case study in a specific local area. For Social Services’ transport, we feel that the most appropriate area to study would be Wantage and Faringdon, where the area review of bus services is due to take effect in October 2003, and at the same time there is a review of Social Services Day Care provision in that area, which will lead to changes in Social Services transport.
9. A "ball-park" cost of £8,000-£11,000 has been estimated for studying use of Social Services’ vehicles. Our Recommendation - (d)(i): Authorise officers in consultation with us to appoint consultants to explore provision of public transport by use of Social Services’ vehicles’ spare time, in conjunction with the area review of bus services in the Faringdon/Wantage area due for implementation in October 2003 and the review of day care provision in the same area (this would incur extra cost and/or a staff requirement).
10. Scrutiny Recommendation B: Should not use subsidy to enhance frequencies above hourly, save possibly where work and school journeys are concerned and loading would be increased (Halcrow/Scrutiny).
11. The existing LTP policy is to recognise hierarchies of services; at the top the Premium Routes to be at 15 minute intervals or better, to be provided commercially long-term but with possible pump-priming; the next level down to be hourly services. Fifty-three per cent of current subsidy goes into hourly daytime services, plus a further 8% for evening and Sunday services.
12. Subsidy for services more frequent than hourly has been much less widespread, but there have nevertheless been numerous examples over recent years. Most common is where the County Council subsidises evening and Sunday services on a route which has high frequency services provided commercially in the daytime; other examples have been to prevent a major reduction in a formerly commercial high frequency route, or on a short route where a bus can make two round trips in an hour and has "nothing better to do" in the second half of each hour. We feel these exceptions should remain permissible within policy.
13. These have been mostly cases where the service previously ran better than hourly without subsidy, whereas what the Bus Services Review addressed was the case for using subsidy to enhance previously lower frequency services above hourly. Halcrow demonstrated that to do so was likely to be very costly, and recommended that any available funds would be better directed to bringing other lower frequency services towards the hourly standard. They suggested that Government Challenge-type funding direct to bus operators – such as the recent "kickstart" proposal from Stagecoach – is a better way to deal with higher frequency enhancements. We agree with this approach, but recognise that some cases may remain where pump-priming is required as part of the Premium Routes Strategy. Our Recommendation - (a)(ii): Incorporate in the draft Bus Strategy a policy not to subsidise services above hourly save:

1. where subsidy is required to minimise a reduction from a previous higher frequency; or
2. where the additional cost of a higher frequency is negligible; or
3. where needed to pump-prime frequency as part of a Premium Route package including new infrastructure and improved marketing, driver training and vehicles, and if no alternative funds are available;

and in furtherance of (3) support a Government pump-priming scheme such as "Kickstart" and to seek pump-priming funding from all appropriate new building developments.

14. A particular concern in the Scrutiny Recommendation is the reference to school journeys. Current policy in both Education and Environmental Services is not to subsidise buses for travel to school (other than for those entitled to free school transport). This was adopted when it became clear that there is a huge latent demand for such services, that those arguing in favour of any such services are particularly prone to quote precedents elsewhere, and that providing short distance peak-only services for low fare users is disproportionately expensive. We feel that providing better bus services to school could contribute significantly to reducing car traffic at peak times. However, to meet all demands would cost £millions: the current "yellow bus" initiative in Surrey, for example, is costed at £16m over 15 years, to cover 46 primary schools - there are 237 primary schools in Oxfordshire, plus 48 secondary. It thus cannot be afforded with current financial constraints, and we therefore propose to retain the current policy in the draft Bus Strategy and have carefully avoided, in Recommendation (a)(ii) above, any wording which weakens it. However, we feel that the possibility of providing more school buses should be kept under review for the future. Our Recommendation - (f)(v): Not to take provision of bus services for travel to school by children not entitled to free transport forward for the time being, but to review this in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06.
15. Scrutiny Recommendation C: Study a bus–bus interchange at Thornhill Park & Ride (Halcrow). The concept of feeding rural services into Park & Rides rather than running through to the city centre is worth considering but gives rise to a number of concerns (such as passenger reaction to interchange, potential overcrowding of buses, through ticketing and ensuring reliable connections) which require investigation. The Rural Transport Partnership (RTP) already propose a study of passenger needs in the rural area around Thornhill, with which such a study could be combined. Estimated cost of study to the County Council (assuming some RTP funding) £7,000. Our Recommendation - (d)(ii): Authorise officers in consultation with us to appoint consultants to carry out a study jointly with RTP, into the feasibility and the likely passenger demand and reaction to using Thornhill Park & Ride for interchange between buses, particularly for local rural services.
16. Scrutiny Recommendation D(1): Seek improvements to the Plus+Pass scheme; if this is unsuccessful set up a ticketing company under Transport Act 2000 powers (Halcrow). Neither Halcrow nor the Scrutiny Committee make entirely clear in what specific ways Plus+Pass needs improving, although the high premium over operators’ own equivalent tickets, lack of Countywide coverage, and non-participation by smaller operators, are mentioned. On 10 February 2000 Public Transport Sub-Committee agreed to give priority to: inter-operator tickets for all bus routes where there was more than one operator, for the whole of Oxford and for a single day’s travel, plus bus/rail ticketing schemes through the various existing initiatives such as "Journey Solutions" of which all but the first are now largely achieved. On 15 February 2001 the Sub-Committee further agreed that Strategy policy should be to "explore Smartcards, shop-based outlets, etc". A study into the potential for Smartcards was recently carried out jointly with Oxford Bus Company and Stagecoach; implementation is not being taken forward by the County Council at present but bus company initiatives are possible. Both the Sub-Committee and Halcrow recognised a need for extra staff resources if the Council used its Transport Act 2000 powers; Halcrow estimated two to three staff or a six-figure consultant budget. We suggest that the aspirations mentioned above simply be included in the draft Bus Strategy for consultation at this stage. Our Recommendation - (a)(iii): Incorporate in the draft Bus Strategy the ticketing aspirations mentioned in the report on the basis that implementation will be through voluntary initiatives such as Plus+Pass in the first instance, with use of Transport Act 2000 powers to set up a ticketing company as a last resort.
17. Scrutiny Recommendation D(2): Encourage fares concessions for 16-25-year-olds (Halcrow). The Transport Act 2000 ticketing powers only cover joint and through tickets, and do not include powers to impose reductions for any one operator’s ticket prices; the powers under which concessionary fares are offered to elderly and disabled people do not allow funding of concessions for 19-60-year-olds although subsidy for low fares for 16-18 year olds would be lawful but expensive. In our view this recommendation is thus a difficult one to implement and should not be treated as a priority for time and money. Our Recommendation - (f)(i): Not to take fares concessions for 16-25 year-olds forward for the time being, but to review this in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06.
18. Scrutiny Recommendation E: Flexibly-routed services are expensive and suited only to very rural areas, but have potential in the Chipping Norton area and a Rural Bus Challenge bid should be submitted for them there (Halcrow). The Executive has already agreed to reschedule the Chipping Norton area review to permit this to be implemented if desired. It is one of four new ways of serving rural areas suggested for further study. Use of consultants would be necessary at a cost of around £15,000 for investigating and preparing the bid; implementation costs should hopefully be covered by the Rural Bus Challenge fund if successful. Our Recommendation - (d)(iii): Authorise officers in consultation with us to appoint consultants to explore provision of public transport by flexibly-routed services, and by postbuses, as part of the Chipping Norton area review, including submission of a Rural Bus Challenge bid and implementation of any agreed new services.
19. Scrutiny Recommendation F: Not to fund services exclusively for workplaces, but seek employer and developer funding for them (Halcrow/Scrutiny). This is existing policy and can straightforwardly be incorporated in the draft Bus Strategy. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation F in the draft Bus Strategy.
20. Scrutiny Recommendation G: Patronage data should be supplied to the County Council by operators – there should be no increase in staff time and cost of bus service monitoring (Halcrow/Scrutiny). Halcrow compared Oxfordshire’s level of monitoring of subsidised bus services with that of other Counties, and on the basis of that recommended a significant increase in activity in Oxfordshire. To check that the Council is "getting what it pays for" in service quality and reliability, they recommended doubling the covert monitoring staff from one to two, and periodic "mystery customer" surveys - present monitoring is largely confined to responding to complaints and revisiting previously-identified problem areas, so does not allow an unbiased sampling of operator performance. To check how well services are used, they recommended a doubling of on-bus surveys by Council staff, as well as data from operators. Only the last–mentioned survived to become a Scrutiny Recommendation.
21. We share the concern of Scrutiny Committee about the resource implications of increased monitoring in present circumstances but feel that the possibility of bringing Oxfordshire up to standards applicable elsewhere should be reviewed in a few years’ time. In the meantime, it is noted that Halcrow estimated an additional staff requirement of 0.7 FTE to analyse operator data. Data from operators has its limitations – recording of pre-purchased tickets such as returns or seasons is unreliable, information on where passengers alight (and in some cases board) is very limited (thus making it difficult to assess, for example, which passengers had alternative services available or which parts of the route had particularly low use and could be reduced or withdrawn); and it is of course open to falsification by company or driver. It nevertheless offers a large volume of general data to supplement the very limited number of more precise surveys by Council staff.
22. However, acquisition of a large volume of data is useless without staff time to analyse it – and persuading operators to provide it is, in officers’ experience, itself time-consuming. There is currently a vacancy of 0.45 FTE in the monitoring area of the Council’s public transport team; which is reducing effectiveness of data collection but is difficult to fill as a part-post. We feel that obtaining extra data from operators is worthwhile, but would require extra staff time and is thus conditional upon extra funding. Our Recommendation - (d)(iv): Ask operators to supply comprehensive data on usage of subsidised services, and more general data on commercial services, on a standardised basis; as soon as legally possible make receipt of such information in respect of subsidised services a condition of subsidy payments; and agree employment of additional staff time to permit this; and (f)(ii): not to take forward enhanced monitoring of service reliability for the time being, but to review this in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06.
23. Scrutiny Recommendation H(1): Control of "services worse than hourly" should not pass to the RTP (Halcrow). This confirms existing policy and can straightforwardly be incorporated in the draft Bus Strategy. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation H(1) in the draft Bus Strategy.
24. Scrutiny Recommendation H(2): Improve Liaison with RTP (Halcrow). This is already implemented – monthly liaison meetings are held and RTP staff are involved in internal area review meetings.
25. Scrutiny Recommendation H(3): Consider a Community Transport Strategy (Halcrow). We understand that RTP officers are keen on this; any such Strategy would need to be developed in close liaison with them and with the many others involved in community transport in Oxfordshire. Whilst such a Strategy would in principle be beneficial, it would thus be a major piece of work, and no evidence has been presented to suggest that it is a priority at a time when there are many other initiatives to be taken forward. We therefore suggest that it be an aspiration for the longer term. Our Recommendation - (f)(iii): Not to take a Community Transport Strategy forward for the time being, but to review this in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06.
26. Scrutiny Recommendation I: Existing relationships between school and public transport procurement should continue – fuller assessment of school transport should be considered for a further, separate study (Halcrow). Currently day-to-day management of Public and School Transport is separate, in Environmental Services and Education respectively, but contracts for subsidised local bus services and home-to-school transport are reviewed in the same areas at the same times. At these reviews:

• There is a unified tendering process, and bus operators are encouraged to submit joint tenders covering school and public services.
• Officers from both departments jointly consider revised networks meeting the needs of both departments.
• Officers explore opportunities for putting groups of pupils on commercial local bus services.
• Officers consult local councils on any demand for other passengers being able to travel on school buses.
• Means are being developed of identifying significant flows of non-entitled pupils, and advising operators of the commercial opportunity they might represent.

27. We have referred the possible further study of school transport to the Executive Member for Schools. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation I in the draft Bus Strategy.
28. Scrutiny Recommendation J: Encourage District Councils to offer concessions for elderly and disabled people before 0900 and more widely across District boundaries (Halcrow). Halcrow justify offering concessions before 0900 on the basis that it would benefit "young elderly" who increasingly work beyond retirement age. It is not clear from their report why working people in this age group should be considered to justify subsidised travel to work not available to others. In my view the main effect of such a concession would be to encourage a significant number of elderly people to transfer current off-peak bus trips to the peak, adding to crowding and either forcing other, more time-sensitive, users to use other modes, or increasing local authority costs (since bus operators are entitled in law to reclaim the costs of any extra buses and drivers needed to carry concessionary travellers). We therefore consider that this suggestion should not be pursued. Our Recommendation - (e)(i): Not to pursue availability of concessionary fares before 0900, in view of concerns about crowding on buses.
29. District Councils, rather than the County Council, have the legal duty to run concessionary fare schemes, and in Oxfordshire each District thus has its own scheme. There have however been frequent calls for a countywide concessionary fares scheme. Seeking wider availability of concessions across District boundaries (all are already available for trips into Oxford) amounts in practice to a revival of such calls. Were one to be introduced, it could well lead to the County Council taking over from District Councils much of the administrative workload of running concessionary fare schemes, including seeking funding from each district. Nevertheless, we feel that we should at least explore the implications of a countywide scheme with District Councils before reaching a decision on the way forward. Our Recommendation - (e)(ii): Ask us to discuss with District Councils the possibility, and implications for the County Council, of a countywide concessionary fares scheme, and report back to the Executive Committee.
30. Scrutiny Recommendation K: Contract length should remain at four years – should contracts over five years become legal in future, longer contracts should be awarded conditional upon improved quality (Halcrow/Scrutiny). This confirms existing policy and practice, and can straightforwardly be incorporated in the draft Bus Strategy. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation K in the draft Bus Strategy.
31. Scrutiny Recommendation L: Should establish a Preferred Bidder Scheme where only operators meeting standards are allowed to bid (Scrutiny). It was the view of Halcrow that, because of the low number of bus service tenders for many contracts in Oxfordshire, relying on the tender process alone to improve quality is ineffective. (This applies particularly to the current Price Preference system). Their recommendation was that the County Council should ensure quality by use of capital funds to purchase low floor buses (or should arrange to lease them) and make them available to the successful tenderer to use on the service (which could be expected to result in a lower tender price to offset the capital cost). The recommendation was overturned by Scrutiny Committee in favour of a Preferred Bidder scheme (which was not assessed, as such, by Halcrow). Clearly eliminating low quality operators is desirable in principle, but there are a number of objections to it in practice:

1. The County Council is required by law to invite bids from all operators who have asked to receive details – a select tenderer list for bus services is unlawful.
2. As mentioned under G above, monitoring of service quality is presently at a low level, and makes no attempt to be random or representative – it largely responds to complaints and concentrates on known problem areas. It would thus be easy, for example, for an operator to eliminate a competitor from the list of Preferred Bidders by generating complaints about the competitor’s services in an area where reliable operation is difficult, perhaps due to traffic congestion. Elimination of an operator based on the present level of monitoring would be very difficult to defend against any legal challenge by that operator.
3. There are technical difficulties about, for example, how a new operator would be assessed for quality and how an operator, once eliminated, could ever rehabilitate himself.
4. Most importantly, with the present low number of tenders (an average of around 1.4 tenders per contract), such a system would give some operators an effective monopoly for County Council contracts in their area, and result in no tenders at all for many contracts. To take a real example, in those area reviews undertaken during the last two years, had 50% of operators been eliminated on the basis of those most often found to be at fault by existing monitoring, there would have been nine services for which there was no operator at all, and the cost of the remainder would have been increased by £140,000 a year.
32. We thus cannot support a preferred bidder scheme, and believe that the consultants’ and Review Panel’s recommendation represents a better way forward. The capital cost of this was not fully quantified by Halcrow but would undoubtedly be high; however, it would be spread over four years (one complete round of area reviews) and would result in a saving of revenue subsidy costs (through operators not having to finance vehicle acquisition themselves) throughout the life of the vehicles (perhaps ten years). Our Recommendation - (b): Not to introduce a Preferred Bidder scheme unless and until the average number of tenders per contract rises to at least three, but to ask officers to explore further the cost, legal and administrative implications of direct purchase of buses by the County Council, as recommended by Halcrow and the Bus Services Review Panel.
33. Scrutiny Recommendation M: To view Quality Contracts as a last resort, but to lobby for a reduction in their notice period for introduction in case of need (Halcrow). This confirms existing policy and practice, and can straightforwardly be incorporated in the draft Bus Strategy. Our Recommendation - a(i): Incorporate Scrutiny Recommendation M in the draft Bus Strategy.
34. Scrutiny Recommendation N(1): Customer Care training for drivers should be a condition of contract; Disability Awareness Training should also be considered (Scrutiny). This was not studied by Halcrow but introduced as a new concept by the Review panel after study completion. Disability Awareness Training (DAT) for bus drivers has however been previously explored by the County Council, and the Council’s Access Officer organises training courses and has had extensive discussions with operators. These courses cover many Customer Care issues, and could readily be amended to cover Customer Care more widely. When the subject was last considered by Public Transport Sub-Committee on 27 April 2000, it was decided to suspend the earlier commitment to make DAT a requirement of subsidy contracts from January 2001, because driver recruitment difficulties made bus operators unwilling to release drivers for training, and at least one operator had already refused to submit any tenders because of this. However, a provisional date of 1 January 2005 was set instead, with a review of the situation scheduled for Spring 2003.
35. The driver recruitment situation appears to have eased, and we understand for example that the Oxford Bus Company have just reintroduced their own Customer Care Course in consequence. It is however not yet clear whether compulsory DAT (with Customer Care) for all companies could now be imposed from 2005 without detriment to tendering, and we suggest officers be asked to explore this further. Our Recommendation - (c): Ask officers to remind all bus operators of the commitment to compulsory Disability Awareness Training for all subsidised service bus drivers from 1 January 2005, and advise them that it should also cover wider Customer Care issues; to offer to work with each to assist them in meeting this target; and to report back to the Executive in the event that serious staffing difficulties appear to remain as an obstacle to this.
36. Scrutiny Recommendation N(2): Postbuses (Halcrow). Environment Scrutiny Committee made no recommendation in respect of postbuses; however, there was a recommendation N dealing with postbuses at an early draft stage! Halcrow identified several limitations in their potential, and officers have previously been unable to make progress on them with Royal Mail locally. However, representations were made to the Executive that postbuses should be explored along with three other new ways of serving rural areas. It is apparent from Halcrow’s work that they have most potential in very rural areas; Chipping Norton has been identified for other purposes as such an area, and it is proposed to ask consultants to explore other types of service in that area; it would seem most appropriate to ask them to look at postbuses there too. Our Recommendation - (d)(iii): Authorise officers in consultation with us to appoint consultants to explore provision of public transport by flexibly-routed services, and by postbuses, as part of the Chipping Norton area review, including submission of a Rural Bus Challenge bid and implementation of any agreed new services.
37. Scrutiny Recommendation O: Environment Scrutiny Committee to review effects of decisions on bus subsidy being taken by Transport Implementation Committee after one year (Halcrow/Scrutiny). Any outcome of this review will be reported to the Executive.
38. Scrutiny Recommendation P(1): Carry out a "simple" assessment of transport needs to supplement existing information used to aid decisions on bus subsidies (Halcrow). The assessment technique recommended by Halcrow takes population, access to facilities (post offices, etc), car ownership and available bus network to produce a single accessibility score for each place.
39. As designed by Halcrow, this technique would be most useful to officers at the start of area reviews, in suggesting places where "accessibility" is low and service improvement might be particularly worth exploring – and vice versa. It could perhaps be adapted to allow report to TIC, at the time they consider bus subsidies, of the extent to which the service in question contributes to alleviating areas of "low accessibility", but more work is required on this.
40. Halcrow have already developed as part of the study a computer model to produce the initial accessibility score, and therefore estimate an average staff input of 11 hours per month to prepare data and carry out these assessments – the officers suspect that it would, in fact, take them longer than it takes Halcrow’s experts, especially at first. We are uncertain at present about how useful such a score would be in practice as an aid to decision-making, and would like to see a fully worked-out example before committing officer time to this long-term. Our Recommendation - (d)(v): Ask officers, subject to the Transport Implementation Committee being satisfied upon receipt of full information from officers on how such a score would work that it would be a valuable aid to decision-making, to report an accessibility score to Transport Implementation Committee in addition to other information on bus services whose subsidy is under review.
41. Scrutiny Recommendation P(2): Subsidy per passenger-kilometre rather than per passenger should be the main measure of value for money (Halcrow). The justification given by Halcrow for this change is not clear. We recognise that the existing subsidy per passenger journey figure has a bias against rural services insofar as it costs more to provide for each, typically longer, journey in a rural area. (It also has a bias in favour of splitting services and forcing interchanges). However, subsidy per passenger-kilometre has a bias the other way, in that it treats somebody travelling ten miles to the shops (say) as five times more important than somebody travelling two miles, which does not seem to us fair.
42. In officers’ view Halcrow have grossly underestimated the staff implications of working out subsidy per passenger-kilometre, since they would have to measure the length of each of the 40 or so passenger-journeys recorded each day as made on a subsidised bus service. In principle it should be possible to do this automatically by computer (for example, if the electronic data capture devices already used on bus to record passengers boarding and alighting were fitted with a GPS system to enable them also to record the location of each record) but we do not presently have this capability and nor have Halcrow been able to tell us of any suitable system currently on the market. In our view this is therefore not worth pursuing further for the time being. Our Recommendation - (f)(iv): Not to take forward the use of subsidy per passenger-kilometre in subsidy decisions for the time being, but to review this in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06.

Financial and Staff Implications

43. Many of the recommendations will have long-term financial implications, as yet unquantifiable; for example, were the County Council to purchase its own low-floor buses there would be a large capital outlay but savings in revenue subsidy; some changes in bus service tendering procedures and policies would lead to changes in tender prices; setting up a ticketing company would cost money and extra staff. Such cases are mentioned in the report, but in most cases we are not recommending that an immediate commitment be made to such expenditure – there would be further investigation and a further decision – making process before final commitment.
44. The extra financial and staff costs which the recommendations would incur in this financial year are as follows:

	Staff	Finance
Further work by consultants ("ball-park" estimated cost):
Investigate use of Social Services’ buses		£10,000
Interchange at Thornhill		£7,000
Flexibility-routed buses and postbuses		£15,000
TOTAL		£32,000
Processing ticket machine data	0.7FTE	£17,500
Revised criteria for assessing subsidised services	0.1FTE	£2,500
Clienting consultant studies	0.2FTE	£5,000
(plus ongoing staff input to exploring similar initiatives elsewhere for those which are successful
TOTAL	1.0FTE	£25,000

45. The 2003/04 budget includes some extra funding for public transport, but if recent very steep rises in tender prices continue, this may all be required to maintain existing bus services. The need for extra bus subsidy will be clearer following the first round of retendering for 2003/04, on which Transport Implementation Committee will make decisions on 17 April. We therefore propose to defer entering into any spending commitments until after that date. If it is apparent, following that meeting, that pressure on bus subsidy costs continues, consideration may have to be given to virement from other budget heads if these Scrutiny recommendations are to be taken forward; Executive members might wish to indicate an order of priority for these projects should finance be restricted.

RECOMMENDATIONS

46. The Executive is RECOMMENDED:

1. to incorporate the following in the draft Bus Strategy:

1. Scrutiny Recommendations A(I), F, H(I), I, K, M, amended only insofar as is necessary to ensure consistency of style with the rest of the document;
2. a policy not to subsidise services above hourly save:

(1) where subsidy is required to minimise a reduction from a previous higher frequency; or

(2) where the additional cost of a higher frequency is negligible; or

(3) where needed to pump-prime frequency as part of a Premium Route package including new infrastructure and improved marketing, driver training and vehicles, and if no alternative funds are available;

and in furtherance of (3) to support a Government pump-priming scheme such as "Kickstart" and to seek pump-priming funding from all appropriate new building developments;

3. the ticketing aspirations mentioned in the report on the basis that implementation will be through voluntary initiatives such as Plus+Pass in the first instance, with use of Transport Act 2000 powers to set up a ticketing company as a last resort;

2. not to introduce a Preferred Bidder scheme unless and until the average number of tenders per contract rises to at least three, but to ask officers to explore further the cost, legal and administrative implications of direct purchase of buses by the County Council, as recommended by Halcrow and the Bus Services Review Panel;
3. to ask officers to remind all bus operators of the commitment to compulsory Disability Awareness Training for all subsidised service bus drivers from 1 January 2005, and advise them that it should also cover wider Customer Care issues; to offer to work with each to assist them in meeting this target; and to report back to the Executive in the event that serious staffing difficulties appear to remain as an obstacle to this;
4. to authorise officers, in consultation with the Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management, to take the following actions (which would incur extra cost and/or a staff requirement), subsequent to an appropriate source of finance being identified:

1. appoint consultants to explore provision of public transport by use of Social Services’ vehicles’ spare time, in conjunction with the area review of bus services in the Faringdon/Wantage area due for implementation in October 2003 and the review of day care provision in the same area;
2. appoint consultants to carry out a study jointly with RTP, into the feasibility and the likely passenger demand and reaction to using Thornhill Park & Ride for interchange between buses, particularly for local rural services;
3. appoint consultants to explore provision of public transport by flexibly-routed services, and by postbuses, as part of the Chipping Norton area review, including submission of a Rural Bus Challenge bid and implementation of any agreed new services;
4. ask operators to supply comprehensive data on usage of subsidised services, and more general data on commercial services, on a standardised basis; as soon as legally possible make receipt of such information in respect of subsidised services a condition of subsidy payments; and agree employment of additional staff time to permit this;
5. subject to the Transport Implementation Committee being satisfied upon receipt of full information from officers on how such a score would work that it would be a valuable aid to decision-making, ask officers to report an accessibility score to Transport Implementation Committee in addition to other information on bus services whose subsidy is under review;

and in relation to (i)–(iii), ask Environment Scrutiny Committee to consider how they wish to be involved in these studies.

5. (i) not to pursue availability of concessionary fares before 0900, in view of

concerns about crowding on buses;

(ii) to ask the Executive Members for Transport and Strategic Planning & Waste Management to discuss with District Councils the possibility, and implications for the County Council, of a countywide concessionary fares scheme, and report back to the Executive;

6. not to take the following forward for the time being, but to review them in conjunction with the LTP review in 2005/06;

1. fares concessions for 16-25 year-olds;
2. enhanced monitoring of service reliability;
3. a Community Transport Strategy;
4. use of subsidy per passenger-kilometre in subsidy decisions;
5. provision of bus services for travel to school by children not entitled to free transport.

COUNCILLOR DAVID ROBERTSON
Executive Member for Transport

COUNCILLOR ANN PURSE
Executive Member for Strategic Planning & Waste Management

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Dick Helling – Tel: Oxford 815859

February 2003

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